Herald of the Stars: Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Seven

Alex Estrugo, Robert McNitt, Nick Rodriquez,  Occasional Newb, and Red7191, thank you so much for supporting my work. I couldn't write Herald of the Stars without your help.

My bodyguards are quick to secure the surviving Eldar and check on the xenos representatives. There are plenty of tech-priests to stabilise the wounded. Everyone is doing their assigned job and there is nothing left for me, a pleasing yet irritating scenario as I want to act. To help. Instead, I have to stand tall and make myself look good as if, despite the disorder and sorrow, everything is under control.

Examining the footage of the streets outside I realise that there is one thing that I can do that no one else can and that will fulfil both needs. I almost feel dirty about doing this. I swallow my discomfort and stride outside.

Moaning and screaming people lie screaming all over the steps up to the Cathedral. The few Heralds that were on duty are already hauling the less injured personnel out of the way on their shields while tech-priests rapidly stitch jagged wounds and administer drugs to dying men and women.

I find an almost clear spot and say to my bodyguards, “Bring me as many dead with no penetrative head wounds as you can in two minutes and lay them gently in a five metre circle around me. Keep the bodies as intact as possible.”

One squad remains by my side and the squad splits into trios and dash off. The bodies rapidly pile around me and I expel almost all my medichines and push them into the brains of the dead, forcefully oxygenating the ‘dead’ individuals. Both of my hearts rapidly accelerate to maintain the pressure of my silvered blood and stop me from passing out too. For the first time in many years I notice I am losing power. Medichines are not for external use and my Warp and Weft module is overclocking to sustain the excessive load.

Simultaneously, I search Iron Crane’s database for first aid supplies nearby, then vox more orders. Within a minute, Servitors run towards me, pushing through the crowds blaring their orders and right of way in Lingua Technis to anyone who doesn’t move fast enough.

Any bodies with fatal head wounds I have my body guards lay to one side. By the time my deadline is up, twenty-six bodies circle me.

++Aldrich, three minutes and fifty seconds until you overheat or are out of power.++

“Damn. I can keep their brains alive, but I’m spread too thin to close their wounds.”

++They wouldn’t have enough blood anyway.++

The Servitors arrive and hand over the first aid kits, all of which are modified vitae supplements. That’s...not ideal.

“If a person has a port, plug them in.”

“That will leave us with fourteen kids, Magos,” says Lieutenant Aife Cattraeth, the Herald standing closest to me and the current officer in charge.

I grimace, that’s still too many. Not adding emergency collars to these first aid versions of the vitae supplement was a massive oversight. I’d never thought about applying emergency life-support to someone under eighteen as these packs were designed with Heralds in mind.

Someone must have arranged to have a few separated from their Void Armour and scattered about the place as a ‘just in case’ measure, rather than consider who might actually need to use them. If I could, I would hijack the nanites in the vitae supplements and spread them about. Unfortunately the Warp and Weft module doesn’t work with them as they’re not Warp based.

With all practical technological solutions exhausted, I kneel among the bodies and clasp my hands in prayer. I knew it would come to this, I just really didn’t want to do it this way, even if it makes me look like a proper Imperial Citizen.

“Aife, place the least damaged in front of me, then swap them for the next when I say so. Perhaps the Emperor will hear my plea.”

He won’t. I don’t have enough souls. There are other options though. For the first time in a while I am glad I am no longer Homo Sapiens.

I draw on the warp. Ice and lightning fill my veins and plunge my hands into the first body, a twelve year old boy with brown hair and light freckles. Most of his chest cavity is missing. His flesh ripples around my hands as I rearrange his circulatory system connecting just a lung, the heart and brain to each other.

I tug at my connection to the Emperor and, much to my surprise, he answers. I feel a hint of curiosity and confusion, but it is distant and I am barely acknowledged. It doesn’t stop him from gobbling the few Eldar souls I have gathered and all I get in return is a lousy gold aura to do good works in his name. No guidance. No power.

With a small spark of lightning I restart the child’s heart, leaving it beating in his open chest. A minor application of Regeneration replenishes just enough blood for the heart to function.

“He’ll need a ventilator and will live long enough to get to a surgery suite. The field medics are already on their way. For now, someone will have to help him breathe. If his heart stops, massage it with care.”

Aife swaps the child over and another Herald removes their helmet, holds the previous boy’s nose, and carefully breathes into the boy’s mouth. It works well enough and I withdraw my medichines, easing the strain on my body.

I work quickly, spending no more than a minute on the first six kids, which frees up just enough time to spend more on the kids with worse injuries. Thanks to my navigator genes I can pull continuously on the Warp for days at a time. Compared to boosting the gellar field to keep the beasties away, a little fleshcrafting barely registers.

The children’s bodies are wrecked and they will need full cybernetic or clone replacements. Probably cloned flesh so that the kids can mature with minimal complications, that is if I don’t intervene further and magic their bodies back together. I am, however, reluctant to shape their bodies more than I have to lest I accidentally introduce corruption. It is unlikely to happen with the mantle of the Emperor’s power upon me, but why risk ruining these kids’ lives more when there are other, safer options?

Fifteen minutes later, the final body is whisked away from me.

Aife clasps me on the shoulder, then helps me to my feet, “I didn’t know you could flesh-craft.”

“With the grace of the Emperor and the teachings of the Machine God, anything is possible.”

“I wish I had such favour.”

I laugh, “It is handy, but imagine your boss watching over your shoulder all day, every day and all you’re ever trusted to do is distribute recaf and you have to pay for it with your own bytes. Decide very carefully if you truly mean that.”

“You really are a man of science, Magos. You take the magic out of magic,” says Aife.

“So long as I don’t start handing out sex tips too, I’m sure humanity will survive.”

Aife holds his fist to his helmet, trying to maintain his decorum, rather than turn his vox off and then laugh without giving it away.

“Let’s refocus,” I say. “Get your squads back in order. We’re going to the Bridge.”

“Yes, Magos.”

My bodyguards have to march doubletime to keep up with my long strides. Thanks to Sadako, our path is clear, with doors, lifts, and trains opening and arriving just as we need them. Machine-spirits check our credentials, scanning our gaits, veins and other biometric measures as we pass through each major bulwark. Haste is no excuse for poor security and it makes it all the more baffling that the Eldar could slip through.

I arrive at the dark command centre and walk up the steps to the central holo-table. Maeve is already present and Eire is on her way. The other members of Fleet Command aren’t on watch, and while the current event is a tragedy, it’s not an emergency. Brigid, Thorfinn, Róisín, and Owen are informed but do not need to attend. As the owner of the Stellar Fleet, I have no such luxury and, while I have watches and time off, I am always on call.

Maeve glares at the holo-table, her arms folded. It shows two different locations, the Eldar base and the North Tomb. She glances over at me as I arrive and points to the Eldar’s primary base.

“It’s empty,” says Maeve. “As agreed before this debacle began, the Eldar have taken almost all their forces for what was supposed to be the final defanging of the tombs in a lightning assault conducted during the next twenty hours. After that, we were supposed to evacuate everyone from Kinbriar over the next two weeks, before the Necrons could respond.

Maeve points at the North Tomb as the last of an Eldar column disappears within it. I lean on the table and look a little closer.

“Rather than splitting their forces,” Maeve continues, “the Eldar took everything they could to the North Tomb, then entered it. Their attack on the Festival of Victorious Dead occurred as soon as they were all beneath the Necron Quantum Shield.”

“What of our own forces?” There is a loud groan as the plasteel of the holo-table deforms slightly beneath my grip. I sigh, step away from the table and stand upright, clasping my hands behind my back.

Maeve looks up at me and her glare recedes, “They’re fine. The Eldar only left behind two thousand or so guardians and thirty-nine bone singers. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and once they confirmed they’d been left behind, all of them surrendered. They are quite furious about it.”

Eire arrives, stares at the holo-table and tuts, “Couldn’t they have betrayed us before we built all their accommodations?” She shakes her head, “An issue for another day. Maeve, Aldrich; Ylien and Orodor survived the assassination. Ylien has been confined to his quarters while internal security reviews what he’s been up to. Thorfin has volunteered to oversee it. Orodor is in the brig, awaiting interrogation. He is injured. He did not resist or complain about us imprisoning him. I suspect he is in shock, though his physiology makes it difficult to tell.”

Maeve scowls, “What of Envoy Lynu?”

“Dead,” says Eire. “Though she remains a greasy blue stain, regardless.”

“A shame,” I say. “I do prefer to work with a known quantity, but I doubt it will change much in the long run. The Tau do not have sufficient influence in the Stellar Fleet to be a real bother.”

“Then we shall speak no more of her,” says Maeve. “Let us focus on a final solution for the Eldar.”

“We’re going to stick to the original deal,” I say.

“I disagree,” says Maeve. “It will cause a riot. Better to leave the traitors to die.”

“No, Maeve,” says Eire. “Aldrich is right. Now’s the chance to get more concessions out of them. Material science. High energy physics. We should squeeze them for everything they have while their pride is low, encouraging them to spurn their own people and betray them out of spite. It is in their nature.”

“Like the Catachan Devil and the Grox,” says Maeve. “One cannot stand by the other, no matter how many jungle fighters are sneaking up on them. I understand what you’re getting at, Eire, and I do know why we struck a deal in the first place. Still, it makes me wonder why we even bothered to try.” Maeve taps her finger against the holo-table. “Fine, I agree, but if they won’t provide additional aid, we abandon them during the sublight voyage.”

“Agreed,” I say. “If we’re going to execute prisoners I want it to be more than because ‘we hate them’. Such thinking would pollute our ranks and no doubt blindside us with trouble. Neither will I break my own word for the same reason, no matter how troublesome others might be.”

Eire smirks, “There’s always administrative error and a scapegoat cultist, Aldrich. No need to be too inflexible.”

“If we must,” I frown. “No point setting myself up for an obvious trap.”

“Like the Eldar?” says Maeve, slightly smug.

“Yes,” I sigh, “like the Eldar.”